Reading for Improvement

Lesson #124: Some Ways British English Expressions Can Differ From American Expressions

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Over the last few days I have been listening to several podcasts and YouTube videos while doing housework.  Almost all of these are hosted by English speakers from the U.S.A., and I noticed how many expressions are used in conversational American English that aren’t typically employed in the U.K. or Ireland. Many English language learners […]

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Lesson #123: Discovering a Writing Style or Voice That Reflects Personality (Part 2)

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In the previous post, we began looking at a passage by Jane Austen (continued below) to consider how she created distinctive voices for different characters: 📙 ‘Marianne was astonished to find how much the imagination of her mother and herself had outstripped the truth. “And you really are not engaged to him!” said she. “Yet

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Lesson #123: Discovering a Writing Style or Voice That Reflects Personality (Part 1)

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One of the most rewarding stages in language learning is when you begin to have your own STYLE or VOICE in the language you have been studying.  As a proofreader of various texts, I must exercise caution when correcting a text so that I do not end up changing the writer’s style, but rather know

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Lesson #122: Different Usages of the Subjunctive in George Eliot’s ‘Middlemarch’

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Perhaps the English grammar tense that learners (and even native speakers) struggle most with is the SUBJUNCTIVE. ✍️ It has various forms that can be used in different situations, as long as those expressions refer to either a demand, a wish, a suggestion or a hypothetical situation (a situation that could happen but hasn’t yet happened). ✍️

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Lesson #121: The Smallest Element in Writing That is Often Overlooked

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There are numerous factors that must be considered when writing well. Grammar. Vocabulary. Clear thoughts. But one of the most overlooked of all is PUNCTUATION. The right commas, semicolons and periods (along with the appropriate use of brackets, dashes, and hyphens) can ‘make or break’ a sentence.  In many ways, I believe that if you

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Lesson #120: Mini-lesson Monday (Part 2): How Frances Hodgson Burnett’s Children’s Book Illustrates Effective Writing

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Mini-lesson Monday (Part 2): ✨This passage by Frances Hodgson Burnett is noteworthy for how simply yet effectively it describes ACTIVITY: (both physical movement and internal thoughts).  It does this in two ways: ✒️ Firstly, by using SHORT SENTENCES that express some kind of tension and transformation. ✒️  Secondly, by including A SINGLE ADVERB in the whole

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Lesson #120: Mini-lesson Monday (Part 1): How Frances Hodgson Burnett’s Children’s Book Illustrates Effective Writing

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Mini-lesson Monday (Part 1):  I still have some childhood favourites on my bookshelf – books that I read and dreamt about so often as a young girl. One of those was Frances Hodgson Burnett’s A Little Princess (1905), which I am looking forward to sharing with you today (at least a small part of it)! Today I’d

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Lesson #110: Being Focused and Intentional about Reading to Improve Ourselves

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INTERMEDIATE LEVEL Before the global pandemic, I had very different plans for Autumn 2020. As a matter of fact, this evening, I had planned to meet my fellow students and had had a special dinner that celebrated the beginning of a new academic year. (Have you noticed the past perfect tense in those sentences?) Being

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